Dear friends,
This week, I have been thinking a great deal about our ministries to children, youth, and their families. Our Sunday School has begun in full force, and our Open House was well attended last Sunday particularly by some of our newer families. Our Youth Group Open House event takes place this coming Sunday as our program year gets underway. And I find myself beginning to organize my Confirmation Class curriculum for the new year. Our work with younger generations and the intergenerational dimension of our parish’s life has, then, been very much on my mind over the last few days. Indeed, our Gospel reading this Sunday features one of the moments when Jesus draws his disciples’ attention to the children in their community. He says, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” (Mark 9.37)
In relation to this, one person who has also been very much in my prayers is a man named Jerome Berryman. For those who are not familiar, The Rev. Dr. Jerome Berryman was an Episcopal priest who created the pedagogy and indeed church movement that we now call Godly Play. Berryman created Godly Play in the early nineties, following many years of research in theology, education theory, child psychology, and the Montessori teaching method which focuses intently on creative play and experiential learning. As Berryman and his wife Thea developed their own method, it quickly grew into an international foundation and is now one of the most widely used childhood spirituality curricula in the world. It is also used with adults, and, following recent research, with persons experiencing mental health and special educational needs.
In a typical Godly Play lesson, children enter a small, often custom designed chapel, where they sit in a circle, and a teacher uses sensory objects to tell a Biblical story. Instead of simply reading from the Bible or preaching to the children, the teacher “unpacks” the story in front of the group and asks “wondering questions” about the characters and elements of the narrative. “I wonder who these people are?” “I wonder what they thought they were looking for.” “I wonder where you are in this story.” Following the story and reflection, there are then activities, and a feast (as the lesson is reminiscent of the Eucharist), after which the children receive a blessing before departing. The next time you find yourself walking around our Sunday School classrooms, you will notice many such stories placed on the shelves lining each room. Many churches adapt the lessons and the method to cater to the needs of their own community. And Godly Play is one part of our curriculum at St. John’s, too.
Jerome Berryman passed away this summer, on August 6, at the age of 87. He was a wonderful human being. Over the last few years, I got to know him a little when I was serving as a school chaplain and conducting research in the theology and spirituality of childhood. One of the things Berryman would often say was that childhood was not simply an early stage of life, but a way of looking at reality at any stage of our life. Even as an adult, Berryman was someone who had a “child-like” quality about him: he would always talk to you, somewhat disarmingly, on equal terms (even if you were newer to researching the field, like me); he was curious, enthusiastic, and thoughtful; he asked probing questions, and if he discovered something he didn’t understand he wouldn’t let go of it. In many ways, his life, research, teaching, and ministry were all of a piece. He both taught and embodied a way of life where childhood was not understood simply as a specific period of time, but a way of being in the world, a form of perception, a kind of logic or sense of the world that is, in many ways, timeless.
Essentially, then, “becoming like a child to enter the kingdom of heaven,” as Jesus teaches elsewhere (Matthew 18.3-5), is not about going back in time or becoming nostalgic but learning to look at reality as it is right now and engaging with it authentically and openly. This, I think, is something we can all learn from, wherever we may be on our own spiritual journey. And as we move further into this new year together and find ourselves reorienting ourselves to life as a Christian community, how we tell our own stories, engage in wonder, and understand the way we look at the world is essential. It is vital for living into our relationships with one another and with God. I wonder what this looks like for you?
With every prayer and blessing,
Ed.